Monday, January 07, 2013

'They came to curse and ended up blessing'

The challenge to the legality of the Samarian village of Rechalim could have been yet another instance in which the the Government of Israel refuses to properly defend its construction of a Jewish town, and the government ends up being 'ordered' by the Supreme Court to expel Jews from their homes. But that's not what happened. This time, the residents won. And the town became 'authorized.'

Things came to a head with a lawsuit filed by the far-left Yesh Din
organization against the community. Similar lawsuits have led to
demolition and displacement elsewhere.

This time, the Samaria Regional Council’s Strategy Center decided to
take preemptive action. Regional leaders focused on bringing as many
politicians as possible to see the “illegal” settlement, hoping to show
them the absurdity of the situation, in which a thriving community
created by the government faced the chopping block for lack of a single
government signature.

The initiative was wildly successful. Several ministers and more than
60 Members of Knesset came to see Rachelim, and nearly all, including
those on the political left, agreed that it would be unjust for the
government to destroy as “illegal” the town that it had created. When it
came time for the government to submit an opinion to the Supreme Court
in response to the Yesh Din lawsuit, ministers and MKs pushed for a
solution that would finally authorize the community as legal – which is
what ultimately was done.

Samaria Regional Council head Gershon Mesika expressed satisfaction
with the decision. “This means the victory of basic logic over the
politics and mean-spiritedness of the anti-Zionist left,” he declared.
“The Prime Minister made the logical decision and ended years of
unneeded harm to residents of the town.”

Deputy council head Yossi Dagan chose to send a tongue-in-cheek
“thank you” to Yesh Din for its lawsuit. “In the name of Rachelim, I am
grateful to the extreme-left group Yesh Din for its contrarian lawsuit,
which caused the Israeli government to come to a decision, to grab the
bull by the horns and right a wrong that had lasted for years,” he said.

“They came to curse,” he added, “but in the end, as in the [Biblical] story of Bilaam, they gave a blessing.”

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 12 to 33 years and eight grandchildren. Three of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com